


The Voice That Urged Orpheus

by LogicallySerial



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Original Work
Genre: Cats, Forest Gods, M/M, Music, Original work - Freeform, Other, depictions of hozier as a god, im in love with hozier sorry, man i love flowers, perversion of mythology, the character andrew is not hozier if it isnt obvious enough, thinly veiled self insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicallySerial/pseuds/LogicallySerial
Summary: Andrew finds comfort in three things, his cat, a forest clearing, and the love he finds there.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	The Voice That Urged Orpheus

**Author's Note:**

> ah, an update. this story is now not only a shrine to my yearning for hozier but a memorial to my lovely, lovely cat albus. he was very much real and took up the largest part of my heart, and has for the past 5 years. we had to put him to sleep 6/15/20. doesn't feel real yet, but now i still have this silly story where i wrote about him.

Andrew and Able are two halves of a codependent relationship.

This confuses some people, because Able is a cat. It doesn’t matter to either of them though, because they’ve managed just fine together all this time. Able lets Andrew pull him close and Andrew lets Able eat a bit more than he probably should. It’s nice.

But they are both restless, constantly switching between fidgeting or cat napping, and together, they decide to find a spot for themselves in the woods. Well, Andrew decides, and Able winds himself around Andrew’s legs, and that’s agreement enough.

So that afternoon, instead of sitting by the space heater and drawing endlessly, he gathers his cat in his arms and goes for a walk.

Andrew isn’t worried about Able running off, as they often venture into the backyard for some fresh air. Able likes snuffling the garden and Andrew likes drawing the neighbor’s dog. It’s nice.

They wander past the edge of their yard today, into the wood that marks the edge of the neighborhood. There’s a faint trail he’s made over the course of many autumn walks, but it doesn’t go so far as the path they’re on now. This is a deer’s trail, and it will lead to water, a clearing that Andrew’s only seen once when he was little.

He finds it faster than he thought he might, but it’s hard to miss the glow of sunlight dancing across a pool, unbidden by trees casting shadows. Around the pool is fresh green grass, so unnatural this deep in the forest, and it practically shines with the light coming down. It’s a little slice of heaven, and Andrew almost feels bad when he lays Able into the grass, as untouched as this place is. 

But it’s perfect, for what they want. An escape, maybe, but mostly something new, something that changes and they can discover together. At least, that’s what Andrew wants. And he finds it here, leaning against a tree with his pad propped up on his thighs and his pencil scratching lazily across the paper. 

The sun is warm and Able circles back to lay next to him. It’s a painting in a museum, a boy and his cat by a pond, and it’s so beautiful that Andrew swears he can hear music. 

***

Not the next day, but the day after that, Andrew takes Able to the clearing again. It had rained the previous day and the grass is dewey, so Andrew brings a blanket to lay out so he doesn’t get his pants wet. Able settles down next to him, too spoiled to get his paws damp.

Andrew draws the pond again, and a frog he can’t see but can hear. When he’s done he listens to their clearing. It’s quiet in a way that’s hard to describe. A softness to the noise around them that would make it easy to fall asleep. Almost a beat created by the frogs, and notes by the crickets as the sun sinks lower in the sky. They’ve spent the whole day out here, Andrew snacking on the apples he brought and Able finding new ways to drape himself across a lap. Andrew finds himself not wanting to leave.

The clearing already feels like home, and so he closes his eyes and leans back on the blanket, one arm a pillow and the other clutching Able to his chest. He breathes deeply for long minutes, and eventually Able’s purring and snuffling sends him into an evening nap.

***

He wakes up to birdsong. It’s morning, or nearly morning. Able is still by his side, and his gut unclenches. He had no doubt that Able would stay, but some that he might be taken. He isn’t sure by what.

Listening to the birdsong still, he gathers his things inside the blanket and lets Able follow him back down the deer’s path. The song gets quieter.

***

The next day, Andrew sees a figure through the trees, and decides not to bother them. Beckons Able back towards the yard.

***

The day after that, the figure is gone, until it isn’t. It’s there, in the span of a blink, legs folded neatly and eyes right on Andrew and Able.

Andrew nearly pisses himself.

“Fuck! God, sorry?” he says, voice pitched up an octave higher than it already is. The figure grins.

“It’s okay.”

Andrew believes it.

The figure is kind, and pretty, and Andrew feels safe, despite the mystery of feeling at home in something that surely couldn’t be further from it.

“The figure”, for Andrew can’t build courage to ask a name quite yet, is tall, with long dark hair and a downy beard. It wears the color green, in a material not quite placable, but looks like moss and leaves and the feeling of springtime. It has pointed canines and bright eyes, and when it speaks, it’s in a lilted voice that feels more private than anything.

“You’ve made yourself comfortable,” it says.

Andrew nods, fidgeting with the fringe of his blanket. Able still sits by the figure, the end of his tail flicking when it takes one of itslong, pretty hands away from his back. 

“Not many do. They get scared.”

To that, Andrew doesn’t know how to respond. He can’t nod, it wasn’t a question. 

“By what?” he asks his own.

The figure blinks, slow, and its eyelashes are clumped together like grass clumps with dew. 

“Me. My songs. They find them eerie, unsettling, find a different place to lay out their blanket and their cat,” it smiles. Andrew can’t help but return it, meekly. It falls though, and his fidgeting extends to his feet, poking the toe of his shoe into the ground, flattening the grass and any bugs that lay there.

“Eerie because we’re in the middle of the wood and there shouldn’t be singing?”

“Sounds to be right.”

Andrew averts his gaze and tries to still his fidgeting. He adjusts his posture and meets the figure’s eyes again.

“So why am I so stupid as to just accept it as a part of the forest?”

“Not stupid, I don’t think. Just lonely.” And that hurts, because it’s true. Despite Able being attached to his hip, it would be nice to have… someone else. Someone who doesn’t just listen. The figure tilts its head in thought. “Lonely in a way I can understand. Trees listen, and so do you. But it’s different to hear you respond.”

Andrew startles, suddenly protective of his thoughts. It’s hard to tell… anything, about the figure, about the clearing and where it’s led him. And Able.

“I did respond though. I learned the songs. I hummed them at home,” he says, quietly like someone else might hear him, or like he doesn’t want to be heard at all. A confession.

“Did you? Well. I’m very flattered. But,” the figure crawls forward, and Andrew finds himself unable to flinch, “-but it’s different to hear your voice. Your answer. What do you think of my songs?”

The figure is very close, and it feels safe and calm and like Andrew could very easily,  _ very _ easily fall-

“I think they make me cry, sometimes. And I hold my cat and I cry and think about the pain in your voice.”

Able draws closer in wake of the figure, seeming to seek the safety Andrew has found there too. 

The figure keeps his gaze, on its knees as it was earlier, hands in its lap and hair soft around its shoulders. 

“Do you recognize that pain, I wonder?” the figure asks. Andrew doesn’t respond. Many times he had found himself wanting something hard, and soft, and everything. 

So, “Yeah, I do.” The figure’s already nodding like it knew. Maybe it did.

“Why don’t you go home, love?”

Andrew blinks at the name, and nods shortly. 

“I’ll be here tomorrow, if you want.”

Another short nod, and the figure is gone like a breeze.

***

And despite his agreement, Andrew doesn’t visit the clearing for nearly a week after the encounter. Not out of fear of the figure, but out of fear it was a dream, a hazy hallucination caused by the quiet bliss of the clearing.

But when he does go back, Able trailing behind him,, the figure is there. 

“I missed you,” it says. Andrew startles, having only just broke through to the clearing.

“Yeah?” he says quietly. He finds himself unspeakably relieved that the figure is still here, still solid in front of him. Today, it has foxgloves wound through its hair.

“I did. Worried I might have been entrapping you?” it jokes.

Andrew shakes his head seriously, and the figure laughs, full, head tilted back and pretty hair falling behind its shoulders. When it stops, it’s still smiling.

“I can show you something, if you’d like?”

He watches as Able meanders over to the figure, purrs when he gets those long fingers scratching right where he wants.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The figure smiles and it occurs to Andrew- 

“What do I call you?” he blurts, and immediately feels like he’s broken a rule, a pillar that held this fantasy in place. But the figure only cocks its head and keeps smiling.

“Orpheus, I think, is the closest you could get.” It lets Andrew stew and begins to walk away, following the pool and where it trails into a creek. 

Scrambling to catch up, Andrew makes pace with the- the Orpheus, matching each of its steps with two of his own. Jesus, it’s tall.

He can’t think of anything to say, so he instead watches Able trot alongside them. He seems just as confident in their direction as Orpheus. 

They haven’t walked for long, it seems, when Andrew notices a… shift. Something subtle, unplaceable generally, but noticeable in the way sound seems to move around them, and the leaves glow with sunshine just a bit more. He hurries to keep up with Orpheus.

The shift isn’t what Orpheus was showing him, it turns out, merely a part of it. This becomes obvious when they enter the same clearing they were in before. But…

“It’s- I don’t even know if I should ask how,” Andrew breathes, gazing around.

What was already a beautiful, untouched piece of natural bliss, is somehow even more lush, more full of light, but the most astonishing things are the mushrooms, tall as Orpheus and some taller, that are scattered amongst the trees, like they belong. Andrew thinks they just might.

It’s not just mushrooms, though, it’s twinkling lights hovering between branches and the constant humming of some sleepy song, and mossy beds laid out that are just exactly the right size for each of them. Lily of the valleys drooping their blooms in clumps around the trees, and-

And Orpheus.

Andrew realizes with sudden and full clarity that this is for him, for his eyes to share with no one but Able, but Orpheus. And he knows Orpheus did this, Orpheus with his sharp canines and his long pretty hands, and the music he  _ oozes _ into the places around him, his shining feet that grass squirms underneath, the blossoms that sprout just behind him.

And he is no longer an  _ it,  _ despite his very clear inhumanity. Orpheus is something else, but he is here and he created this, and Andrew has  _ no idea why. _

“You shouldn’t,” he says, leaning against one of the redder, softer-around-the-edges trees. Andrew looks at him. Orpheus makes a loose gesture, “Ask, I mean. You shouldn’t ask. I have my ways, my reasons.”

And Andrew only notices the feelings that have seeped into his skin, settled in his ribcage. In two days, he’s fallen in love and he doesn’t know with what. 

So he sits on one moss bed, soft and dry to the touch. The feeling eases when Able hurries to settle into his lap, and, petting his cat, his first love, he thinks that maybe that’s okay.

***

Andrew goes to the clearing the next day, and Orpheus isn’t there.

***

Or the day after that.

***

Or the day after that.

*** 

Andrew is staring out the window. It’s raining, hard, and Able is crying at him. He wants to go outside, maybe he wants to see Orpheus, but he wouldn’t be there, and besides. The rain.

***

Orpheus finds him. 

Andrew and Able are on the back lawn, Andrew drawing the tiny mushrooms that have made themselves at home on a fallen branch. Able lays on his side, twisting his belly up for an occasional rub.

They are sitting in the lawn, and Andrew hears the humming. It’s not quite the humming he heard in that other world, the world he must have imagined, but it’s there, and so he looks up.

Orpheus is sitting in front of him, not three feet away, legs tucked neatly underneath himself. He looks very, very, sad.

“I missed you,” he says. 

Andrew stares, starts to gather his things, his cat.

“I missed you, when you left, the second you left.”

Andrew pauses, meets Orpheus’ eyes. His eyes are so, so intense. He straightens up, Able winding around his legs. 

“So why weren’t… why didn’t you come again? I did. I looked.”

Orpheus is silent for a moment, opens His mouth, closes it.

“I ran out of music, I think.” When all He gets is a blank stare, He continues. “You knew it all. You learned my music and I got scared. I got scared you’d not want to… if you didn’t have the music.”

Andrew looks at Him, really  _ looks  _ at him.

“I thought I had dreamt you. I  _ did  _ dream of you. About you. You-” he clears his throat of tears, “you let me into the clearing, and I told you I loved you, and you surrounded us with flowers. That was the day you showed me…” he trails off, shakes his head to clear himself. Looks up at Orpheus again. “The next day you weren’t there. I stopped trying to believe.”

And they stand in silence after that, stand, and when Orpheus takes Andrew’s hand, Andrew follows Him. 

***

They are in the clearing. The humming is sweet, and warm, and it’s a tune Andrew knows very well.

He’s in Orpheus’ lap, Orpheus leaning back against his red, soft-around-the-edges tree. He lets Andrew push a strand of hair twisted with blooms behind His ear. He lets Andrew kiss him, and He surrounds them with flowers. 

This is not the first time.

  
  



End file.
